Because family is at the heart of the Mafia
One of the best-known Italian families in the North Side of Kansas City were the Passantino brothers, who owned a large funeral home on Independence Blvd. The eldest of the brothers was Rosario “Rosie” Passantino. Rosie was a security bondsman with a near-monopoly on bail bonds in Kansas City. Dead or alive, you could count on the Passantino brothers to take care of you.
Yeast was of vital importance to organized crime during Prohibition, since it was an essential ingredient for the commercial production of alcohol.
After the Valentine’s Day Massacre, three of Al Capone’s top men were found dead. Legend has it that Capone beat them himself with a baseball bat.
According to the legend, Nick Licata’s comfortable position in Detroit was pulled out from under him when he somehow offended Joseph Zerilli, one of the most powerful gangsters in the city.
When Joseph Parisi was in jail in Springfield in the early months of 1923, he shared a cell with Eugenio Scibelli, recently captured in Jersey City, New Jersey, and wanted in the shooting death of Antonio Bonavita in Springfield in December 1920. Bonavita was a shoemaker who did business on Water Street, the main thoroughfare of Springfield’s Little Italy. According to Bonavita’s granddaughter, who wrote about her family in 2017, the shoemaker was also a bootlegger and a rising star in the criminal firmament.
The identity of the Maranzano contract killer known as “Buster from Chicago” has been debated for years.
The targets of the protest were corrupt police and the Mafia who paid them. Hear the whole story from a trans activist and Mafia historian, Justin Cascio.
Tommy Lucchese spent his formative years in a neighborhood dominated by the Morello-Terranova gang of Corleone. At the height of his power, some of the men closest to him were Corleonesi, people who’d worked with Giuseppe Morello, and who Tommy had known and worked with since his teens.
By most accounts, Mafia associate and vineyardist Frank Borgia was last seen early in December 1951.
Hey, Northampton: Plan to hang out with nerds on Monday night. I'll be there!
Mafia Genealogy 